Remember that scene at the end of the Woodstock documentary after Hendrix played and everyone was gone and all that was left was a field strewn with trash and a few volunteers rifling through the leftover knapsacks and articles of clothing left behind? I imagine it’s kind of like that over at the Javits Center come 8 p.m. Sunday night, except instead of hippies finding old pairs of shoes and leftover drugs, its the cleaning staff coming across forgotten keychains, branded pens, promotional DVDs, imprinted tote bags and glossy flyers.

I have to say I had a great time, and I can’t wait for next year (maybe as a guest speaker? Topic: How To Use Your Shoe As A Makeshift Tripod For Travel Videos). I can’t think of anything better to do in the dead of winter than to at least pretend to escape, even for just a few days, for a trip around the world. I met an amazingly diverse group of interesting and friendly people, all eager to show off their cultures and convince me to experience their land. Thank you all and I look forward to traveling with you again next year.

Here’s some miscellaneous video from the show.

Dancing on the Asia stage.

Cigar rolling courtesy of the Dominican Republic.

Dancing courtesy of Puerto Rico.

The highlight of this year’s show was the talk I attended entitled “Travel Through the Eyes of the Travel Writer,” moderated by travel writer David Farley with fellow travel writers, Danielle Pergament, Adam Sachs and Tom Downey. Credits between the four of the include CondeNaste Traveler, Travel + Leisure, New York Times, Playboy, and many others.

As I review my very non-journalistic notes taken on my laptop during the talk, I see that I need to learn to take better notes. Anyways, here were the highlight quotes:

Adam: “Looking lost and confused is a good icebreaker; people will take then take pity on you.”

Tom — what do you do to prepare before going somewhere? “I really love to read a lot of fiction about the place that I’m going. I especially like Idlewild Books here in New York where they group the books by country.”

Danyelle: “When you go somewhere, don’t forget what you thought about that place before you got there because this is exactly what your readers will be thinking.”

Final travel tips?

Adam: “Pack Pepto-Bismol tablets.”

Danyelle: “Avoid concierges.”

Tom: “Speak to immigrants that live in your city about their country before you go.”

Favorite Destination?

Tom: “Cape Verde. Portuguese culture, incredible beaches, and amazing music.”

Adam: “Tasmania. One of these places that Australians think of as the Australian Appalachia, but it really is very beautiful. Kind of like a weird combination between Scotland and Aruba.”

Danyelle: “The northern coast of Libya. Empty, so beautiful, and amazing food.”

David: “Belfast. Fantastic place and very friendly people. Intoxicating in more ways than one.”

The above clip is the panel discussing that age-old question: What does it mean to be a tourist versus a traveler? Their answers may surprise you.

Here’s The Travel Channel’s Andrew Zimmern of “Bizzare Foods with Andrew Zimmern,” one of the most energetic and funniest speakers of the day.

He revealed the title of his new spinoff show (Bizzare Worlds), the grossest thing he’s ever had to eat on his show (stinky tofu in Taiwan), and why he likes to wear orange (it’s a slimming color). Actually he didn’t say this, but in my own humble opinion I think that rotund individuals should probably avoid wearing colors that make them resemble certain vegetables associated with Halloween.

Samantha Brown of “Passport to Great Weekends” was greeted (to her surprise — mine too) with a near rock star reception. Take a look at the standing-room only crowd here at the back of the capacity-filled room.

Samantha gave the crowd a sneak peek at her new season then proceeded to answer questions for about 45 minutes. When someone asked her about the “entourage” that accompanies her, she quickly brushed off any insinuation that she had an entourage, then cataloged the number of people that are behind the camera on her show (director, assistant director, cameraman, soundman, and wait for it . . . stylist); a crew member I’m pretty sure Bourdain or Zimmern do not bring along, but someone whom I personally feel is essential in crafting my own videos. You think this hair is easy?

Rick Steves was there too. He also gave a couple talks. You know that saying: if you don’t have anything good to say . . . ?

But check out the fully automated R2-D2 waiting patiently outside the men’s room door (assumedly from ComicCon next door)!

Sweet.

Right before I begrudgingly allowed the Frommers (father and daughter power-duo Pauline and Arthur) to take a picture with me (okay, in reality I tracked them down and forced my camera onto an unsuspecting passerby), I told Arther how I was blogging the event as I handed him my card. “Oh yes,” he responded, “at the end of every day I’m always thinking about my own blog and what to write about.”

“Don’t you just have one of your underling editors do it for you?” I asked incredulously.

“No, no, I assure you that’s me every day.”

And with that little bit of humility, I was quickly reminded why he’s the most successful guy in the biz and has been for the past 55 years. He and his daughter are also probably two of the nicest as well, something I couldn’t say about some others (I’m looking at you GoNomad.com). Afterwards I started to wonder how many employees in the world are allowed to call their boss “Daddy” and not be promptly fired on the spot.

Earlier the Frommers gave a talk entitled “Best Bargains For The Year Ahead” where Arthur pointed out how quickly things have changed from only several months ago when many people thought the age of affordable travel was over. Now the dollar’s strong, oil prices have dropped and bargains abound around the world as the economy is forcing airliners and hotels to slash prices.

Pauline gave her own insights into tracking down the best deals on the web (check out BiddingForTravel.com to find out what others have paid on Priceline).

Brazil was really just resting up for the bash it was putting on later in the day. Brazilians are also just cool enough where they can decide to read the paper and let you figure out for yourself why you should visit their amazing country.

Peru’s smart enough to know that they just need to keep the ceviche coming and the visitors will follow naturally.

You know, because travel agents have it so hard that they really, really need back massages to help them unwind.

The day was capped off with a final cocktail meet-and-greet where the tropical caipirinhas being served were an all-too-welcome reminder of why Brazil is probably a way better place to be in early February than most of the rest of the world.

I also ran into the fine folks over at TripFilms.com (and by “run into” I mean texted them and asked them to come find me while I waited patiently near the Mexico booth so that I could badger them in person as to why they haven’t picked my recent Cartagena video as a “Featured Video” yet on their site.)

I’m not sure if I was very convincing, but halfway through my rant they quickly changed the subject and told me about the first annual Trippy Awards — an award going to the best travel video host of the year whom they will be rewarding with a Yangtze River cruise (stay tuned later in the week for some shameful self-promotion to get myself in the front-running).

Tomorrow’s speaker schedule is set, kicking off with my nemesis Rick Steves at 10:30, followed by the Frommers and then Samantha Brown of the Travel Channel. Check back tomorrow for more updates and further travel celebrity sightings. (I’m really pulling for Anthony Bourdain to make a surprise appearance, brandish a cooking knife and go to town cooking up some lunch over at the France booth. Doubtful, but a man can have dreams.)

The freshly printed brochures were laid out in neat piles, the promotional pencils were sharpened, and the ceviche (Peru) and rum cake (Puerto Rico) were readied for the swarms of hungry conventioneers; something tells me these freebies won’t last long when the doors open to the rest of the world tomorrow.

After an hour spent updating the site ($5 for one hour of internet use!) I headed upstairs into the souk-like main hall of the show. As was the case last year, Greece and Turkey really outdid everyone both in size and in the number of representatives (maybe a little friendly rivalry going on?), and the Caribbean/Latin American booths were by far the tastiest (see above).

I started off in the Africa/Safari section. Jospeh (left) from CKCSafaris told me about the recent influx of visitors wanting to make the day trip from Nairobi to visit Obama’s dad’s village of Kogelo (which I blogged about a few weeks ago). I told him about my recent visit to Bush’s father’s village in Connecticut — Greenwich — but he was less than impressed.

Like last year, South Africa’s really pushing travel ahead of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Justin from South Africa’s Tourism Board gave me a free soccer ball keychain if I promised to go and have a good time — yes and yes.

Arthur Frommer (right), Mr. Travel himself could be seen wandering the labyrinthine floor, having a good time and looking great while doing so. (Sir Frommer was born in 1929; do the math on that one people. If I’m still yucking it up with Croatia’s marketing coordinator and kicking back samples of Argentinian wine at 80 I’ll be a very happy man.)

And a toucan. I was looking all over the jungles of Colombia to see one while I was there. Who knew I just had to head over to Eleventh Avenue to catch a sighting?

After about five minutes of waiting in a line that stretched from one end to the other of the massive lobby of the Javits Center, I overheard the guy behind me say, “I was thinking of wearing my ‘1985 Pac-Man Champion’ t-shirt today, but it was way too dirty.”

“Maybe this is the wrong line,” I thought to myself, noting that this was not the type of thing you’d hear the typical travel agent or tourism board’s representative say. Then I caught sight of a woman (I think) dressed up as a Star Trek extra (I think). This is when I realized that ComicCon 2009 and the New York Times Travel Show had switched ends of the hall this year. The line I was looking for was the far shorter, much less interestingly dressed one back at the South entrance.

Guess which of these lines was the one I wanted.

The morning of the first day is filled with lectures aimed mainly at travel agents and tour operators, not exactly my cup of tea, but at least lunch is included. The main event opens up later this afternoon, then opens to the public for the rest of the weekend. This year the show organized a “Focus on Africa” panel of speakers in conjunction with the normal presenters, focusing, as the name suggests, on Africa.

The first set of speakers that I saw (yes, I slept in and missed the 9:30 talk, but give me a break, I really wanted to be fully rested and on top of my game all weekend) featured representative from airliners based in Africa, all of whom are feeling the crunch of the economic turndown, and all of whom are offering a slew of deals to improve business (South African Airlines is offering 2 for 1 flights and Virgin Airlines is announcing direct flights from New York with discounted fares).

The second panel discussed the range of travel options for Africa, from luxurious safaris, off-the-beaten treks to the continent’s gorgeous islands, and the amazing opportunities North Africa offers for travelers.

I’ll be heading upstairs now to the main hall for the real fun. Check back later for updates with some video and pictures. Tomorrow the show opens up to the public, including a schedule of speakers and performers beginning early in the morning. I’ll be setting my alarm this time.

Yes, it’s that time of year again. It felt like just yesterday that I was rolling out of bed at 7 a.m. on a frigid Friday morning and making my way into that forgotten section of Manhattan known as the Far West Side, past the long lines of eager nerds waiting to get in to New York ComicCon, and into the Javits Center for the New York Times Travel Show, the world’s largest travel event of its kind.

I’ll be liveblogging the event all weekend (a word I’m not even sure exists, but Google came up with at least a few hits so that’s good enough for me).

This year we have the always dependable, always 6th-grade-math-teaching-looking Rick Steves who, surprise, will be talking about Europe.

The godfather of travel, Arthur Frommer, will be there along with his lovely daughter Pauline, whom I promise not to serenade with wedding offers this year.

Samantha “I’m on the Travel Channel every time you turn it on” Brown will be speaking; the author of “1,000 Places to See Before You Die” will be adding to her list; and Travel Channel host Andrew Zimmern will be telling audiences what crazy thing he ate last and how most of his paycheck goes to his elaborate personal web site.

Of course there will be other speakers all weekend, hourly performances, representative from around the world, and much, much more. Check in all weekend for updates. And if you’re going, I plan to sneak into Croatia’s Tourism Board’s booth around 1 p.m. while they’re away for lunch and pretend that it’s for TheExpeditioner.com. I will also be signing autographs at that time. See you there!